It is sometimes difficult for an individual to meet other individuals having similar interests and personal characteristics. There are many reasons for this difficulty such as long work hours, limited organizational memberships in the form of churches and the like, and unusual preferences to name but a few. For example, a person who has recently moved to a new area will likely not know many other people and thus may have limited social opportunities. Such a person may be introduced to many new people, but common interests or desirable and undesirable characteristics may not be readily apparent. Thus, a person may be able to reliably estimate the age of another, but not educational level or other such characteristics that may be of interest. Further, a person may want to enter a relationship only with a person having a similar religious affiliation. However, religious affiliation is not discernible from appearance alone. It will be appreciated that meeting others having characteristics that are important to a particular individual may not occur without significant effort and personal contact on the part of the individual.
In an attempt to meet the need for facilitating social interaction, many personal advertisement systems are available. They can be in the form of personal advertisements placed in a newspaper, magazine or other publication. Such personal ads allow an individual to specify limited criteria desired in another such as gender or race and the like, in addition to a minimal amount of text. Although such ads allow communication with many people in the form of readers, it will be appreciated that it can be difficult to tactfully set forth prerequisite requirements for another in the space typically allotted for such an ad.
After placement of a personal ad, the individual must wait for others to respond and may have very little, if any, information about them. Respondents may meet at least some of the criteria of the advertiser, but the advertiser may not have many of the characteristics desired by the respondent. This can decrease the chances of forming a desired ongoing relationship, friendship, or other form of association. In addition, much time can be spent and frustration experienced due to this lack of information.
As the popularity of the Internet has increased, some newspapers and other print publications now provide personal advertisements on various web sites. One such example is an on-line personal advertisement system having a plurality of users. Each user selects a set of criteria, such as height, body type, and interests, that must be met by another user. Upon request of a user, the system searches the database for other users that meet the criteria of the requesting user. In this way, a list of potential candidates is provided that the user may have an interest in contacting to begin a relationship or engage in activities of mutual interest.
Such a system provides an improvement over reading countless personal advertisements of which most will not be of any interest, but does not take into account the requirements of the candidates with respect to the first user. For example, a first candidate may meet all the requirements of the first user, but the first user may not meet any of the criteria of the first candidate. Thus, the first user may contact candidates that are not interested in meeting the first user because the first user does not meet some requirement of a respective candidate.
Another disadvantage of such a system is that the candidates meeting the criteria of the first user are not provided in any particular order. For example, the first user may feel that the most important characteristic of a candidate be that the candidate not drink. A candidate may likewise feel strongly about drinking, but be only one of many candidates that meet the first user's criteria. Presenting candidates that meet the criteria specified by the first user in an ordered manner would be useful.